The Dream of Every Recent College Grad: To Go to Cornell Law

Some things just can’t be explained. Stonehenge. Davos. What really happened to Oceanic Flight 815. The hype over indie-rock darlings Animal Collective.

And there’s this: that applications to Cornell Law have jumped 52% over the number of applications filed last year.

Of course, experts can explain why applications to law school are up generally. Unemployment is through the roof. The American economy is riven with uncertainty. What better place to bide your time for a few years than an Ivy League law school?

But why 52%? At Cornell? We have no idea. Nor does the school’s associate dean for communications and enrollment, Richard Geiger, who told the University’s paper he was as mystified as anyone. “The increase is probably the result of a number of things working together,” Geiger told the Cornell Daily Sun. “What I can’t explain is why it’s 50 percent and not 20 percent.”

Twenty percent isn’t just a number Geiger plucked from the Ithaca air. Nationally, the number of people who took the LSAT climbed 20 percent in 2009. Other schools have reported large gain in applicants, but nothing approaching Cornell’s.

The numbers may bode ill for any applicants who’ve yet to hear on the state of their applications. Since the University accepts law students on a rolling basis, many have already received their acceptance letters.

“The increase in applications will make us scrutinize things a little more carefully since we don’t fully understand what this is all about,” Geiger said. “We’ll be a little more cautious in making decisions.”

Of course, as the Cornell Daily Sun points out, the prospects for employment after law school remain dismal. Said Christine Lee, the editor-in-chief of the Cornell Law Review: “It’s an interesting time to apply [to law school] since the legal market has changed. I wonder what will happen to all these people trying to go to law school.”

About Law Blog

The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

Must Reads

Plaintiffs' lawyers dodged a bullet last year when the U.S. Supreme Court spared a quarter-century-old precedent that had served as the legal linchpin of the modern investor class-action case. Despite that win, a new report suggests that securities class actions have lost some of their firepower.

In a week in which images of Prophet Muhammad were connected to acts of terror and defiant expressions of freedom, a sculpture of the prophet of Islam inside the U.S. Supreme Court has drawn little notice.

Alan Dershowitz has vowed to slap a defamation suit against the two lawyers who claimed in a court document that Florida financier Jeffrey Epstein arranged sexual liaisons for him with an underage prostitute. Those lawyers have beaten him to the punch.

The salacious allegations against Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz that surfaced in a federal lawsuit involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have generated international attention. Drawing less coverage is the lawsuit itself -- a case with the potential to expand the rights of crime victims during federal investigations.